The fake book: Facebook estimates 83 million of its accounts are phoney

Facebook has admitted that it estimates 83 million of its accounts, or 8.7% of its user base, consists of fake accounts.

According to Tom’s Hardware, the company estimates that around 4.8% of the accounts are duplicates, while a further 2.4% were “user misclassified” accounts where, for example, a Facebook account for a business or event has been registered as a user.

Far more alarmingly, 1.5% of all Facebook accounts are classified as “undesirable” by the company, and are used for malicious purposes such as spamming legitimate users.

The company has also revealed that a growing number of users are switching to mobile devices, with one in 10 users now accessing their accounts from smartphones or tablets but not desktop PCs or Macs.

In total, around 102 million of the company’s 955 million accounts are now accessed solely through mobile devices.